Heinrich Heine > Quotes

“Where words leave off, music begins.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
― Heinrich Heine

“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged”
― Heinrich Heine

“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid”
― Heinrich Heine

“In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Das war ein Vorspiel nur; dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."

(Almansor)”
― Heinrich Heine, Heinrich Heine's gesammelte Werke

“Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.”
― Heinrich Heine

“I wept in my dreams.
I dreamed you lay in the grave;
I awoke, and the tears
still poured down my cheeks.

I wept in my dreams,
I dreamed you had left me;
I awoke and I went on weeping
long and bitterly.

I wept in my dreams,
I dreamed you were still kind to me;
I awoke, and still
the flow of my tears streams on.
”
― Heinrich Heine

“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”
― Heinrich Heine

“There are more fools in the world than there are people.”
― Heinrich Heine

“I live, which is the main point.”
― Heinrich Heine

“I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamed that I was reading on, so I awoke from sheer boredom. ”
― Heinrich Heine

“All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it. ”
― Heinrich Heine

“The more i get to know people, the more i like dogs.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.”
― Heinrich Heine

“First, I thought, almost despairing,
This must crush my spirit now;
Yet I bore it, and am bearing-
Only do not ask me how.”
― Heinrich Heine

“A pine tree standeth lonely
In the North on an upland bare;
It standeth whitely shrouded
With snow, and sleepeth there.

It dreameth of a Palm tree
Which far in the East alone,
In the mournful silence standeth
On its ridge of burning stone.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.”
― Heinrich Heine

“God will forgive me. It's his job." Heine said this on his deathbed (1856). Hilarious. He must have thought that up years before and counted the seconds to use it.”
― Heinrich Heine

“The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Experience is a good school. But the fees are high”
― Heinrich Heine

“The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather-
beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.”
― Heinrich Heine

“This was but a prelude;
where books are burnt
human-beings will be burnt
in the end”
― Heinrich Heine

“Lieb Liebchen, leg ‘s Händchen aufs Herze mein; -
Ach, hörst du, wie’s pochet im Kämmerlein,
Da hauset ein Zimmermann schlimm und arg,
Der zimmert mir einen Totensarg.

Es hämmert und klopfet bei Tag und bei Nacht;
Es hat mich schon längst um den Schlaf gebracht.
Ach! sputet Euch, Meister Zimmermann,
Damit ich balde schlafen kann.”
― Heinrich Heine, Das Buch der Lieder

“And yonder sits a maiden, The fairest of the fair, With gold in her garment glittering, And she combs her golden hair.”
― Heinrich Heine

“But that age … exerts on us
An almost terrible charm,
Like the memory of things seen
And a life lived in dreams.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Iron helmets will not save/
Even heroes from the grave/
Good man's blood will drain away/
While the wickid win the day.”
― Heinrich Heine

“Lo, sleep is good, better is death--in sooth
The best of all were never to be born.”
― Heinrich Heine

“I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains who set upon you to recount their sufferings and even recite their poems.”
― Heinrich Heine